Veggie Samosas

My interest in making elaborate recipes has really waned.  Everything involved in preparing these recipes (picking the recipe, grocery shopping, prep, cooking, cleaning) just sounds like a huge energy sucker when a good portion of my energy already goes to caring for E.  I am too deep into toddlerhood to imagine a time when E will be more independent.  But I hear it happens.  

This recipe was R's initiative and his never-ending quest for vegetarian recipes. 

Potato Vegetable Samosas

source

Dough

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

¾ cup warm water

Filling

2 ½ cups peeled and diced Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into ½-inch pieces

1 tablespoon fennel seed

1 tablespoon cumin seed

2 teaspoons coriander seed

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

½ cup finely diced onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 package (1 lb), frozen chopped spinach, thawed and excess juices squeezed out

½ cup frozen peas, thawed

salt and pepper

vegetable oil for frying

Dough

1. For dough, combine flour and salt. Stir in oil, then stir in warm water. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured worksurface and knead until dough is elastic, about 5 minutes.

2. Cover and set aside while preparing filling.

Filling

1. Boil potatoes uncovered in salted water until tender, then drain well and set aside.

2. In a large sauté pan, toast fennel, cumin and coriander seeds for 2 minutes (until a fragrance is noticeable). Add oil, then onion and sauté for 4 minutes, until onion is translucent. Add garlic and ginger and sauté one minute more. 

Stir in spinach, peas and cooked potatoes, mashing lightly to combine and warm, then season to taste. Let filling cool.

3. To assemble samosas, divide dough into 12 equal portions and shape each portion into a ball. On a lightly floured surface,roll out 1 ball into a 6-inch circle. Cut circle in half. Fold 1 corner of semicircle up and over middle. Fold second corner over to make triangle, and pinch corners of triangle to seal (leave rounded side open). Hold triangle in your hand with open rounded side facing up and let dough fall open to make cone. Fill cone with approximately 2 tablespoons potato mixture, then pinch along rounded side to seal.

4. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Cover and chill samosas until ready to cook.

5. Fill a pot with 2-inches of oil (make sure oil fills pot not more than halfway) and heat to 350 F. With tongs, place samosas in oil, leaving an inch between them, and cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Turn over and cook other side until brown, then remove onto a paper-towel lined plate to drain.

6. Samosas can be served warm or at room temperature with mango chutney.

7. TIP: Alternately, the samosa can be brushed with an eggwash and baked at 375 °F on a parchment-lined baking tray for 30 minutes. (that's what we did)

Verdict:  Just okay....My spices could have been fresher. Tonne of dishes.  Good for freezing....though I haven't really felt like defrosting them.

Batch Cooking

I've never been organized enough to have a weekly menu planned out.  At most, we come up with four meals that we're going to make throughout the week, when we create our grocery list.  The rest of the meals are either leftovers, something from the freezer or something simple like breakfast for dinner or grilled cheese.  But, realistically, this plan doesn't always pan out well.  Often, I am okay with R's meal idea, in theory, and we buy groceries for it. But, when R wants to make it for tonight's supper, I don't actually want to have another random lentil dish.  

When a friend mentioned having a batch cooking day, I was eager to join in.  My freezer has been a bit barren lately.  I think it's because it has been so cold here and most of the foods that I freeze are cold weather foods.  So, they're getting eaten up pretty quickly.  

Three of us got together.  Since we all have kids around the same age, we knew we couldn't do a marathon session, so we kept it moderate and made triple recipes of four dishes (took about 3.5 hours): lasagne, taco soup, slow cooker ribs and butter chicken.  

The lasagna was made according to how my friend usually makes it.  I won't write out the recipe, but want to make note of the differences so that I can remember it down the line if we end up really liking this approach.  She uses a very thick meat sauce.  She also only puts cheeses on the top layer.  Then she  uses a full container of cottage cheese and adds two eggs to the cottage cheese for a creamier consistency. 

I also need to remember to cook the ribs at 400 for 15 minutes on each side before putting the slow cooker on low for 6 hours.  I can also put the ribs back in the oven after slow cooking if I want things to be more caramelized.



Here's some of the math. It total, we spent $174 on the food.  From that, we got:

9 - 8X8 lasagna (estimated three meals/tray since the tray isn't very deep) = 27 portions

6 - slow cooker ribs (estimated three meals -- one rack per bag) = 18 portions

various container of butter chicken (6 portions given to each person) = 18 portions

various containers of taco soup (6 portions per person) = 18 portions

Total = 81 portions (27 each)

Overall cost/person = $54

Overall Cost/portion = $2.15

I think that's a pretty decent cost considering that each portion has meat.  The taco soup was particularly cheap.  I got all of the ingredients for $25 (already had the spices) -- so about $1.40/portion.



Mia's Indian Cuisine

It's common to hear stories about people having a lot of challenges after immigrating to Canada.  Finding a job in your discipline (or one that pays sufficiently and is satisfying), adjusting to a new culture, learning English or French and developing a network are some of the keys to successful integration.  Often times, this takes more than one generation.  So, it's really nice to hear exceptions to this, like the recent restaurant opening of Mia's Indian Cuisine.  Take a moment to read a little bit about the family's story here.

While Giz was in town, we went for dinner to check out the new restaurant.  The decor was simple, with nice white linen on the table.  Some of the reviews insinuate that the service hasn't hit its stride.  But, I found everyone to be friendly (maybe a bit timid).  Even though it was a Saturday evening, the food came out at a reasonable pace.  

To start, we order vegetable samosas.  They were fresh-tasting and better than what we've had at several other local Indian restaurants.

They also brought out some cracker-like appetizer with a chutney dip.  

For the main, we order butter chicken, a tandoori dish and a chana masala.  The chana masala was the favourite at our table.  I found the butter chicken to be too sweet and the tandoori was mixed.  The lamb was quite tough, but the chicken was good.  Since we like spicy food, I was hoping for a bit more heat in our food.     

The naan was delicious.

The salad came with the meal.  I'm still trying to figure out if a side salad is typical to Indian cuisine or if the owners are doing it to appeal to local clientele.  If it's the latter, it's a bit lame.  I think a basic iceberg lettuce salad with a couple of cut vegetables doesn't add much to the table.   

Overall, we were happy with the meal and would return.  In the future, I'll probably opt for some spicier dishes and hope that they modify their butter chicken recipe.  

Ottawa Cultural Festivals

Growing up in Winnipeg, Folklarama was one of the summer festivals I looked forward to attending every year. Folklarama has been around for over 30 years and has grown to a two week festival with over 40 different cultural pavilions set up around the city. The festival typically draws about 425,000 pavilion visits.

In Ottawa, cultural festivals are smaller and usually initiated by individual cultural communities.  But, still well-worth checking out.

Here are some pictures of the food from a few that have taken place over the summer:

Recently, we went to GreekFest, probably one of the most popular cultural festivals in Ottawa.  I can't even imagine how much food they go through during this festival.

Chicken Souvlaki

Gyros Platter

Bougatsa

Baklava

The weekend before last, we checked out Ottawa's first Night Market.  The market was small (about 15 stands total), but it was a great start to what hopefully will grow and become an annual event.  

These ladies are making Turkish gozleme.

Baklava

curry fishballs

A third festival we attended, the South Asian Festival, took place earlier in the summer.  At the festival, we picked up a jar of Ishina's ready-made curry sauce.

I decided to make a vegetarian dish, using the curry sauce and a bunch of these vegetables:

Vegetarian Curry

2-3 zucchini, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
kale (as desired)
1.5 cups cooked brown rice
3 small carrots, chopped
2 garlic, crushed
3/4 jar of curry sauce
2 tbsp olive oil

Add olive oil to pre-heated frying pan.  Add garlic, stirring constantly to avoid burning.  Carrots take longest to cook, so I threw them in first, followed by the zucchini and tomatoes.  I added about 1/4 jar of sauce at this point.  After about 5 minutes, I stirred in the kale, rice and the remainder of the sauce.

Flavourful & healthy!  Great combination.

Aahar: The Taste of India

Aahar is one of those restaurants I've had on my "to try" list for a couple of years. I would drive by their Carling and Churchill location occasionally and make a mental note that I still hadn't gone. I'm glad to have have changed that.

Upon entering the restaurant, I was surprised how bright it was inside. From the outside of the restaurant, it looks like it's really dimly lit, but on the inside I almost wished the lights were a bit dimmer, to give that dining feel.

For starters, we ordered Allo Tikki, which is a spiced potato with curried chickpeas, tamarind sauce, mint sauce, yogurt and coriander.

I would rather there have been less yogurt on the plate. I'm not an expert on Indian food, so maybe that's just the way it is served. Personally, I found that it overly neutralized the spiciness of the potato and took over the other flavours in the dish.

We also ordered samosas, which were quite good. The accompanying sauce was just okay.


For the mains, we order Vindaloo, which included a warning that it was hot even though it was relatively mild. We both really enjoyed it though.

Finally, we went with the typical Butter Chicken. Along with the naan, it tasted great. We even debated over who would get to have it the next day for leftovers.

The service was mixed. The younger guy seemed really nice, although only came out of his shell to chat with us toward the end of the meal. The female working there was polite, but really missed the mark when we gave her feedback on the house red. I told her that the meal was good, but the wine that they served was off. After a quiet giggle, she said, "we don't make the wine." I think it's kind of a ridiculous response. I wasn't assuming that they were producing wine in the back of their restaurant. However, if they're serving wine that tastes bad, they should still feel responsible for the quality of it. It's not like I drank the whole glass and then said it was off. I had two sips and could stand any more of it.

That incident aside, I'd definitely recommend Aahar and intend to go back and order take out from them in the future.

A Pseudo-Willing Collaborator: Chicken Tikka Masala

I had volleyball last night, so R was kind enough to document his preparation of dinner - chicken tikka masala. Before I left he asked, "ok - what part do you want me to photograph?" My reply: "when in doubt, take a picture". He took about 50 pictures.

Ever since working near Spitalfields Market in London, R made finding a good recipe for tikka masala and preparing it regularly a priority. Honestly, it is a bit time consuming. But, if you're in the mood for Indian food, it's worth it!

Update: I'm told that Tikka Masala was actually created in the UK.

Ingredients
1 cup yogourt (plain)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
4 tsp salt, or to taste
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
4 long skewers (I don't use skewers)
1 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
3 tsp salt, or to taste (I don't include)
1 eight oz. can of tomato sauce
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I don't include)

Directions

In a large bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, 2 tsp cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger and salt.



Stir in chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour



The directions, which I don't follow, say: preheat grill for high heat. Lightly oil grill grate. Thread chicken onto skewers and discard marinade. Grill until juices run clear, about 4 minutes on each side.

I put a bit of oil in a large frying pan and fry the chicken in there.



BUT - before putting the chicken into the frying pan. I melt butter (actually, I use oil) in a heavy skillet (our wok, our skillet options are limited). Saute garlic and jalapeno for one minute.



Then season it with 2 tsp cumin, paprika and salt (again, I don't think it needs salt).



Stir in tomato sauce



Add cream. Here we used half and half. The cream I use varies...sometimes 18%. I know that heavy cream is closer to 36% fat, but I find 18% is sufficient. The cream and tomato may separate a bit, but the end product is good (in my opinion). Just note (I'm probably the only one that would make this mistake): even if it is with the best of intentions - don't use anything like Nutriwhip. It makes the recipe taste completely different and somewhat gross. Ah well, you live and you learn.



Simmer the tomato and cream mixture for about 15-20 minutes. Chicken is frying at the same time (time start of chicken frying with the 15-20 minute sauce simmer in mind).



After 15-20 minutes, add cooked chicken to sauce.



Simmer (or as R likes to call it, "soak") for another 10 minutes.



Serve with rice - basmati or jasmine...we use Italian. As long as it's fairly thick-grained rice.